


All Night Long

by IMayFallAgain



Series: Red vs. Blue, Soulmates [4]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 19:03:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11857740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IMayFallAgain/pseuds/IMayFallAgain
Summary: Tucker is staying up late with a pen when an idea catches his mind. He ends up writing to Wash into the early hours of the morning, covered in ink.Any marks on one person's skin shows up on their soulmate's skin.





	All Night Long

Tucker stared into the abyss for a while, seeing and feeling nothing, merely existing. He wasn’t sure if the feeling was liberating or worrying, the simple joy of his mind wandering throughout all sorts of bizarre worlds or the fact that he had quite a lot of work to do before the night, or morning, was up. However, Tucker felt trapped in a miasma of procrastination and a matrix of laziness and generally just not knowing what he was doing.

Spinning his blue pen around in his hand as his foot bounced along to the beat of some fast music, with a constant pattering rain that played a good backdrop to his unfocused eyes and unconscious movements, Tucker sighed as he realised the state he was in, being completely unproductive as he merely lost more sleep, compulsively reaching over to check his computer every few minutes before realising that there was no change and returning to trying to force himself to work.

The blank page began to hurt his eyes as the lines started to swim before his vision, some of the blue words and letters on the page began to stop making sense, the longer he studied them the more they seemed bizarre and distorted. Closing his eyes to take a deep breath before slowly opening them back to his computer, Tucker huffed in frustration, deciding to give up on doing any work whatsoever and choosing instead to catch up on some much needed sleep.

But as his mind began to turn towards sleep, his attention was captured by the pen lying unaccompanied on his desk and the small worm of an idea. He had heard stories, of course, but had never found the impetus to try it for himself, particularly the more permanent methods such as tattoos. But maybe his other was still awake wherever they were, and just maybe Tucker could send them a message.

It had been a long time since he had last received anything from his soulmate, just some scars on his legs that hadn’t faded enough to be invisible, his own attempts of reaching out being ignored coldly and never responded to. But that had been several years ago, and perhaps the person on the other end had readjusted their opinion on the topic of communication.

Hesitating for only a moment in the doorway out of the room, Tucker simply looked back at the lonely pen before his resistance crumbled and he strode back through his room to the desk set off on one side. He snatched the pen up from the table and quickly wrote ‘Hello’ onto the palm of his left hand, watching the blue ink sink into his skin before stopping and staring for a moment.

Of course he wouldn’t get a response instantly, what had he been thinking? Tucker thought about placing the pen back onto the desk before changing his mind and slipping it into his pocket, just in case he ever got a reply.

Tucker then left his room, careful to tread silently in an attempt to not wake up his roommate who would be particularly grumpy with him had he been woken up at such a time in the morning. Stepping quietly, he walked down the small hallway to the bathroom and quickly flicked on the lights as he slipped into the room and shut the door behind him in one swift movement. Once inside, he waited a moment to allow his eyes to adjust to the harsh white lights built into the ceiling before quickly hopping his way across the cold tiles to the sink where a towel was being used as a makeshift mat to stop everybody from freezing their feet off when trying to use the sink.

Tucker spun the taps and waited for some heated water to hit open air before risking putting his hands into any ice-cold water. Humming to himself as he reached over for his toothbrush to wrap up the night, he saw something on his outstretched arm.

His left hand had some writing on it and Tucker brought it before his face to look at it closely. It was grey coloured and had a slight tilt to the side but neatly cordoned off and taking far less space than Tucker’s own messy jumble of handwriting.

_‘Hello.’_

Tucker reached for the pen in his pocket, toothbrush forgotten, and clicked the pen, only pausing to think for a moment.

‘My name is Tucker’

He placed the pen down beside the sink before slowly pacing back and forth in the confined bathroom as he awaited some kind of reply, looking down at his arm constantly. Immaculate grey writing slowly started to appear onto the inside of his left forearm, letters forming as a pen seemed to trace along Tucker’s skin.

_‘What are you doing writing to me now?’_

Tucker barely hesitated, still too giddy from the sheer knowledge that he was communicating with his soulmate to wait any longer.

‘I’m bored and you’ve never responded before’

The wait was shorter this time and Tucker lowered the toilet lid before sitting down on it, ignoring the cold against his legs and focusing instead on the new words that were appearing. He smiled to himself at the thought of finally being able to communicate with his soulmate, whoever it was, and began to bounce his leg impatiently as pristine lines and curves faded in.

_‘What time is it where you are? It’s early morning for me.’_

Tucker could almost stand up and dance were it not for the fatigue in his eyes and legs, because his other was somewhat in the same time zone as him.

‘Same for me, I should be heading to bed’

_‘Shame that.’_

‘But I’ll be happy to put it off just for you’

_‘Now isn’t that sweet of you.’_

Tucker snorted in amusement at their tone, akin to an old married couple, as he began to write out his response onto the back of his forearm.

 

Tucker smiled tiredly as he read the goodnight over again, quickly sending one back as he returned to his room, careful to step even more cautiously than during his first trip, as Church was more sensitive to noises before waking up than after falling asleep. Flicking on the torch on his phone, Tucker paced swiftly to his desk, where his computer had already fallen asleep and half finished work lay scattered about on the surface, and he half-heartedly began to organise the mess as he half kept watching for some kind of reply.

Not getting one, he considered going to sleep, already having learnt that his soulmate had only just woken up to go for a jog in the early morning, both of them being so distracted by the other that they remained sitting there talking for an hour longer than they had meant to, his soulmate even having to get another pen after the first ran out of ink. Their conversation stretched along Tucker’s left arm and he could trace how it had begun on the palm and spread all over the arm, twisting around and up the arm to coat almost up to his shoulder. There wasn’t much substantial information in the ink, merely friendly chit-chat and a promise to communicate some point later in the week.

Sighing as no reply came, and guessing that whoever his mystery other was had gone out for their jog as they assumed that the conversation had ended there, Tucker silently switched out his clothing for some more comfortable variants of his everyday clothes before placing the pen down onto the bedside table and pulling back his messy sheets and soft blanket. Squeezing into the cold material and shivering slightly, Tucker switched the flashlight of his phone off and lay on his back to stare at the ceiling in the darkness. His head was swimming about in his skull as he thought of all the questions he would ask the next day, and the day after that, right hand unconsciously tracing along the words on his skin.

Tucker paused as he reached near the wrist, remembering what was written there, his name but no response. Turning his phone’s screen back on to use the faint glow of the lockscreen, Tucker shone it all over his left arm to try to find a name that wasn’t there. He scrabbled on the bedside table to his left and grabbed for the pen, eager to write out his question, even if he’d only receive an answer the following day it was worth writing the question.

‘What’s your name?’ Tucker scrawled hastily in one of the only spaces he had left, peering at his arm in the faint glow of his phone being held against his upper arm, squinting at the grey and blue writing that barely showed up on his arm, the ink faintly shining in the light. He waited with bated breath for a response. Tucker let out a sigh, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. Perhaps he had left it for too long.

He opened his eyes to look at his arm, watching the one empty space left on his skin and waiting. Sleep called to him, but so did his need to know the name of his soulmate, eyes straining against the dark to notice even the most minute change in his skin. Suddenly, a small line appeared then another angled up beside it. Grey letters began to take form and Tucker watched the, now slanted and slapdash, words fade onto his skin. Tucker’s phone turned itself off and he cursed at it as his right hand instantly turned the screen back on to illuminate the name.

_‘Wash.’_

Tucker snuggled himself deeper into the bed, placing the pen onto the dark blue bedside table with a small smirk on his face. Wash, huh? Tucker could work with that. Maybe he was a tall hunk with big muscles and tiny handwriting, or perhaps he was small and wiry with glasses and working to become a doctor, he did have the handwriting for it. He glanced at the name for a moment before turning off his phone and placing it beside his blue pen, settling down into the warm comfort of the bed and promises of future conversations with Wash.

Tucker smiled softly to the dark as he thought about Wash and the many possibilities that the future held. He had never got around to finishing his work. But work could wait, for now was the time for dreams.

**Author's Note:**

> This will likely be my last Red vs. Blue fic for a very long time.
> 
> Thank you for reading.


End file.
